Monday Review

I really don't accomplish anything on Mondays right now between Trajan's ISR lessons and it being date night, but I sure do enjoy them. Perhaps I lack a natural sense of guilt, but the fact that I don't do anything these days towards really progressing the house just doesn't bother me in the least.

I did do a first load of laundry in the new machines and I'm a happy camper. I was washing Trajan's mound of towels from ISR (they require three a day, I sneak by with two) and I was able to fit them all in one load and even though I ran it on heavy-duty, the washer only took 1 hour and 10 minutes. This is over half an hour shorter than the old machines on quick wash!!!

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith also arrived yesterday from Amazon. We haven't tried it yet, but I am looking forward to it. It's odd, I've had a game machine of some type since college (we didn't have them growing up), but I've never been so involved and eager to interact with a machine as I am with the Wii. It makes for a great, easy reward.

For example, tonight I know I'd like to try out the new game. I'd also like to see the living room (where the Wii is located) neatened up as a minimum first step towards getting it organized. Therefore, I'll tradeoff between these two to transfer my motivation to try out the game to getting the room in order. A nice thing about Guitar Hero type games is that there are very easily identifiable "chunks" that are not to long in the form of individual songs.

So, look for info tomorrow on Guitar Hero and living room organization!

Roll with it.

I've always argued that moderation is the key to just about everything, but I think that's only part of it. I think a bit of flexibility is also key.

I bring this up because of my experience of this afternoon. So, I more than surpassed my goal for the day. I sorted, organized and cleaned everything within the "midspaces" area, the laundry room and the entryway. That's the positive. The negative is that I also broke the washing machine in the process. The washing machine and the dryer entered my life with Paul. They're about 6 years old and are relatively nice asko machines. They are my nemesis. At the time he purchased them, they were the most energy-efficient on the market. This translates into small and very slow. I could complete a normal load in five hours. Plus, I have an amazing skill at causing minor damage too them. Minor damage in that it takes the guy under two minutes to fix them, but damage in that they are unusable until he gets out.

So, this afternoon I broke the washing machine. Paul looked at it and then stated we should go to Home Depot and buy new ones. Now, as someone who perhaps obsessively researches, I was very unsure about this. However, my trials and tribulations with the machines were such that I agreed. So we grabbed Trajan and off we went. About forty minutes and three thousand dollars later, we were the proud owners of new Whirlpool Duet something-or-other machines. The fact that I say something-or-other shows the degree to which I didn't research anything. This decision was based solely on anecdotal accounts from friends that both the Whirlpools and the LGs were nice, but there was a real shortage of LG repair people around.

This is relevant to my continued battle against the stuff, the mess and the dirt for several reasons. First, based on my thoughts this morning on "spacescaping" the laundry room, we decided to get the storage pedestal things instead of the work surface. I think this is a better decision because it gives us valuable storage space, doesn't create an additional flat space to draw stuff like a magnet and the area is not very valuable as a workspace anyway because the cabinets above stick out in the way. It's also relevant for while everything has been gone through, the final order for the room isn't achieved yet because it will be different with the storage pedestals than with the current elfa cart.

So, while this action isn't typical for me and not something I would recommend as a standard operating procedure, I think it was the right one and one that will benefit all of us.

Clarification

In talking with a friend, I realized that I should probably provide a bit of clarification about what the Clutter Diet system is designed for. It really is about maintaining order that exists with gradual improvement with a heavy emphasis on establishing routines and systems as well as eliminating clutter. It is not about cleaning, though it does emphasize enabling cleaning. It is also not advertised or emphasized as something to deal with extreme situations like we present. However, they don’t seem phased by it either! Also, my thought is there is no time sooner than now, so while we might not be in ideal shape for the Clutter Diet, we can only gain by going ahead and starting. From my reading and reflection thus far, I really feel that it’s the systems and the routines that are the crux of the matter and those apply to everyone, regardless of their situation. So, while it may not present the solution to every issue of keeping your house clean and organized, it traverses most of that chasm.

I did encounter one issue last night because of our complete lack of order in that since there is stuff to varying degrees on most flat surfaces, it’s really hard to identify peripheral space to pull stuff out and organize while spacescaping. I’ll have more to say about this after this weekend as it’s my deadline to have spacescaped the laundry room by the end of the weekend. My thought is I might just have to bite the bullet and invest some time to put up the items (basically folded laundry) that are accumulated in the “midspace” that runs outside the laundry room.

BTW: thanks for the comment that inspired this as well as all the other conversations I’ve had with those of you who are supporting me in this venture!